Another excuse to stare blankly at my screen and talk to myself!

Beth Moore has a 2 minute audio ministry and on her Dec 9th spot, she talked about God’s wrath, and I applaud her for that topic. I think that needs to be a regular subject in our pulpits.

What concerns me is that she does not think that our best approach to non-believers is to talk about God’s wrath, but his love. She tells us that God’s love is a huge draw and she justifies the “love only” approach with Romans 2:4, saying that God’s kindness leads us to repentance. This is a serious error in interpretation and we need to be clear on what scripture actually says.

Mrs Moore clearly interprets Romans 2:4 as, telling people about God’s kindness leads them to repentance, but that is not what the verse says. The verse tells us that the fact that we are able to repent is evidence that God is kind. If Paul was telling us to tell people only about God’s love, then he violated his own teaching in Acts 24:25 when he spoke of the need for righteousness and the judgment to come.

John the baptist said, “who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” And Jesus spoke often about the fires of Hell and commanded that people repent or perish. The Bible says that godlysorrow works repentance, not the knowledge that he is kind. James 4:9 tell us to “mourn and weep, letting our laughter be turned to sorrow and our joy to heaviness”. How does telling people that God loves them produce sorrow and heaviness without a personal conviction of sin and its consequences?

Even the cross is evidence of God’s terrible wrath. Isaiah 53:10 said that it pleased God to CRUSH HIM. The fact is, that Christ centered witnessing needs God’s wrath to allow His love make sense.

“[Satan] stirs up daily, new sects, and last of all, which of all other I should never have foreseen or once suspected, he has raised up a sect as such as teach… that men should not be terrified by the Law, but gently exhorted by the preaching of the grace of Christ.” –Martin Luther

I saw an interesting interview on Beliefnet with Rick Warren, and the interviewer brought up some things that I believe we need to be able to answer- correctly. If we do not have a firm, biblical foundation, the theology we build on that foundation gets way out of wack. We end up inserting what we think, instead of what scripture says.

Please understand that I am not trying to single out Pastor Warren, but I feel an obligation to speak up against bad theology, no matter who it is.

Pastor Warren’s messages are mixed with solid truth one minute and bad theology the next. For example, Pastor Warren says loud and clear that Jesus is the ONLY way to get to heaven– YEAH! But then he will say to the unsaved that God is not angry at them– EXCUSE ME? Doesn’t scripture say something about God’s anger and wrath on unbelievers? And these errors are not on some secondary issues, these are serious problems that effect how people respond to the gospel. These are FOUNDATIONAL issues.

Before watching the interview, there are a few basic things I want you to think about as you listen.

People are not sent to Hell just because they don’t believe in Jesus, they are sent to Hell primarily for breaking God’s laws. The Bible tells us that liars and thieves, adulterers, idolaters, covetous, and the sexually impure (and other law breakers) will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. Unbelief IS a sin, but it is not the primary reason people are sent to Hell.

What happens to those who have never heard of Jesus? The Bible says that everyone is given a conscience (Rom 2:14-15). People know it is wrong to lie and steal and commit adultery. So if someone does not sin, they will be fine, but if they have broken the law, then they will be guilty before God, and will be judged according to light that they have.

If non-believers die in their sins, they are judged for ALL the sins they have committed. Every one. Every sin requires payment. Every sin requires that justice is done. Either you repent and put your faith in Jesus, and the price He paid for our sins , or you pay for your own sin be spending an eternity in Hell.

See if you can spot the “personal” beliefs of both the interviewer and Pastor Warren that have no basis in scripture.

Rick Warren was on Hannity and Colmes last week (Dec 4th) where he was promoting his new book, The Purpose of Christmas. I think the interview was very interesting and disappointing. I also think that understanding why this was a HORRIBLE gospel presentation can help us in presenting the gospel the correct way and give people a real reason to turn to Jesus this season. Here’s the video, watch it and lets reason this out together.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Right off the bat, I see a problem. Salvation is mentioned, but what are people being saved from? They need to be saved from the wrath of God that is going to be poured out on those who do not know God. Pastor Warren does nothing to tell people WHY they need a savior. The cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. Most men will proclaim their own goodness. Pastor Warren basically says that we need a savior because God said so. That is extremely inadequate.

Secondly, just “unrapping” the gift is not enough. People are stuck on accepting Christ, but that is so lukewarm and trivial, it has none of the weight that the Bible attaches to salvation… dieing to yourself, picking up your cross daily, forsaking sin, total surrender of one’s self as a living sacrifice to God. There is no repentance in Pastor Warren’s message. No brokenness. When James said to weep and mourn over your sins, letting your laughter be sorrow and your joy to heaviness, I don’t think that was code for “accept Jesus into your heart”.

Pastor Warren was asked a specific question about what happens to people who do not “accept” Jesus. The answer was typical for someone who does not build a foundation on the Law of God. There was no judgment, no wrath, no Hell in Pastor Warren’s message (and no cross for that matter). How can a god who loves me be angry at me? Colmes did not seem to think he needed a savior.

And the last point, and the biggest gripe I have, is… TRY JESUS? What is He, a used car? A pair of jeans that you try on just see if they are a right fit for you? Pastor Warren challenges people to put their trust in Jesus for 60 days like He is some life improvement infomercial. Jesus did not suffer and die so you could try Him out and see if He makes your life better. In fact, the only things promised for a Christian in this life are trials, tribulation, and persecution. Can we receive blessings like a better marriage, or emotional healing from our walk with Christ? Yes, but if you come to Christ because you want something, no matter how bad your situation, then you come with a wrong motive. If you d0 not come to Christ because you are a guilty criminal in need of a savior, then God will not save you.

Jesus Christ is the sovereign God of the universe, and we are supposed to give Him a shot at being Lord of our lives? Like He is going to say, “oh goody, I get to be Lord today!” He IS Lord, whether you live in rebellion to that fact or not. The only thing Pastor Warren’s message will serve to do is water down Christianity and create false converts.

I was riding with a friend when he pulled up behind an SUV that had “God loves you” written on the back window. We were discussing spiritual things, so I asked him a tough question. Do you know why the statement “God loves you”, by itself, is totally inappropriate to tell people?

The one thing that is NOT lacking in what we are telling the world is that God is love. Love, love, love, love, love. My radio station said “you should not believe what you hear about Jesus unless it begins and ends with love”. Emails I have been sent say “if God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it!” UGGGH!!

When you start off with God’s love, you have nowhere to go. How do say, “Well, God loves you, but He is going to be forced to send you to Hell.” That makes no sense. I hear non-Christians tell me over and over again things like “a loving god would not send someone to Hell”, “if god is all loving and all forgiving as Christians say he is…”, “How could a god of love create a place of everlasting torment?” “Isn’t God supposed to be all forgiving?” “My god understands that we make mistakes.”

When we do talk about Hell, people get offended. They have been told God loves them, not angry at them. It’s like a criminal brought before the judge and the bailiff tells him, “Ya know, the judge REALLY loves you!” And then the criminal comes out to a judge full of anger at his crimes and says, “I am forced to sentence you to prison for the rest of your life.” The criminal can’t understand it. He thinks that his “minor” mistakes are in the past, they are not big deal, and besides he has done more good than bad.

People first need know that He is angry and sin- He is angry at THEM. They need to know He is holy and righteous and will, by no means, overlook sin. And then, if they are not trying to justify their sin, we can reveal God’s love the way the Bible does; “Here in is God’s love, not that we loved Him, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins.” (1Jn 4:10) God’s love is expressed in the cross of Christ. But preaching Christ crucified is foolishness to those whose hearts have not been broken by the Law of God. (1Cor 1:18) Only a heart that has been plowed up will receive the farmers seed.

If we continue to push this “squishy” god to the world, we are going to end up with false religions that call themselves Christian but remove Hell altogether, or claim that everyone goes to Heaven… oh, wait… we already have that… sorry!

It is easy to think that God gives people second chances. That is kinda the way our society is set up. We give criminals three strikes, and we go to counseling to get second chances at our marriage (not me personally, I was speaking in general). We divorce and remarry to get a second chance at love and we coin phrases like, “everybody deserves a second chance”. I have even heard the phrase, “Why not give God a second chance”, like he needs another shot at winning your heart.

The problem is that we have a concept of God that we try and fit into our understanding and sometimes it turns out really bad. Saying that God is the God of second chances has a huge problem associated with it. It puts the burden on the person to make sure they do it right this time. It also makes God out to be unjust. Awww, God will give you another chance. I think people can too easily turn this into works righteousness and think they can be good enough to get to heaven, or they keep failing and sink down into despair.

It’s like we need to preform well to get God’s approval. Well, if you are a Christian, I hate to break it to ya, but you are gonna let God down. BIG TIME. There is going to be some point in your life when you know what the will of God is and you choke. You let what everybody else thinks about you govern your actions rather than what you know God wants you to do. It’s gonna happen.

God is the God of COMPLETE justification of sins, past, present, and future. God is the God of sanctification, growing in holiness and obedience. God is the God of a new heart a new nature, being crucified with Christ to be born again in him. That is a little different than getting a “second chance”. Your salvation is not based on what you do, but who He is. That does not mean he overlooks sin, but that there is NOTHING good that dwells within us. All of our righteousness is like filthy rags in his sight.

If someone tells me that God gave them a second chance, I immediately think that they might have come to Christ for life enhancement and not for forgiveness of sins. I would not dare say that someone who viewpoint could not be a Christian, but it does make me question someone a little more than usual.

A Sunday School class I was helping out with went through the parable of the Prodigal Son but the interpretation that the teacher gave to the students troubled me and I would like to tell you what concerned me and why. I also found out that the interpretation that the teacher gave seems to be a pretty popular one.

I have been told that the first rule to interpreting scripture is that if you have a different understanding of the text than the original hears would have had, then your interpretation is wrong. This parable is a perfect example of how the meaning can get twisted based on the current culture and viewpoints of people today. So what is the view of today’s Christianity and how does it shape the meaning of the Prodigal Son?

Today’s Christianity says that you can be a child of God and “backslide” for a period of time, and not have to question the sincerity of your salvation. You can go off and live in a lifestyle of sin and say, “I backslid for a few years, but I was saved the whole time”. Ted Haggard was an example of this mindset, when he was exposed for having a homosexual affair with a prostitute and taking meth-amphetamines for three years and lying about it, many said, “Don’t question his salvation!” Even though it is likely that he would have continued in that lifestyle for as long as he could.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do not believe that anyone can “lose” their salvation by falling into sin, but when you knowingly live in a lifestyle of unrepentant sin, then you need to question your salvation. Ray Boltz, who says he is still a Christian after admitting he is living openly as a homosexual, is another example.

So, FINALLY, here is the interpretation the teacher gave- The father represents God and the two sons represent Christians. The one child ran away from God and live apart from him for awhile, but came running back to open arms. He was still a child of God but he had to realize that God knew what was best for him. And we need to realize that if we run from God, he is always there ready to take us back.

The Prodigal Son Returns

The first problem was, that Jesus was talking to a crowd of Jewish leaders. They were self righteous Jews who thought that just because they were born as children of Abraham, and were “faithful” Jews, they were children of God already. They would not have understood this “backsliding” concept. They would have believed that the rebellion of the second son was worthy of death.

The second was that the second son, the prodigal, HATED his father. Wanting his inheritance immediately was paramount to saying, “Dad, I wish you were dead so I could get what belongs to me now”. Does that sound like something a true Christian would say, or does that sound like a rebel who shakes their fist at God? The fact that Jesus called him a child does not mean that he was in a right relationship with the father. God created us, so in that sense, he is our father, but this parable shows us that it is not about our heritage, but about our relationship.

The fact that Jesus started the story off where he did tells us a lot too. Jesus did not start off by giving us a son who honored his father and fell away, he started the story off with a son that rebelled against his father.

The third problem I had was that the son went off to live in a lifestyle of open, unrepentant sin. Jesus told us that the son wasted his livelihood on prostitutes and riotous living. There is a saying that goes something like, “you cannot call yourself a Christian and live like the Devil”. If you live in a manner that betrays what you say you believe, then you are a hypocrite, a pretender, you are a false Christian.

One other thing to notice about this story is the first son, the “faithful” son. If you carefully read the story, you can tell that by his attitude, he was not in a right relationship with the father either.

This parable is not about what to do if you backslide, but about true repentance and God’s willingness to forgive.

If you want to dive deeper into this parable, I suggest John McArthur’s book, “A Tale of Two Sons“. The book goes through the culture of the time and the audience that would have heard this story for the first time. It also takes a look at the two parables leading up to the Prodigal Son.

I have found that there are basically three reasons why people reject christianity (or call themselves Christian, but are in reality just cultural Christians). All of these reasons have to do with understanding.

People do not understand themselves –People think that they are basically good. They cannot see that they deserve Hell. They think that their good deeds should outweigh their bad, or they think that their “not as bad as other people”. They do not see themselves as criminals, but more as victims of their circumstances. Even if they have done bad things, it’s not their fault, it’s always someone else’s fault. If a man is caught molesting children and it they find out that he was molested as a child, then his bad behavior is not his fault, he is emotionally damaged and cannot be held responsible for his own actions.

People do not understand christianity –Oprah said that she does not believe that there is only one way to God. She revealed that she does not understand what christianity is. Every other “religion” seeks to get right with God through their own efforts; either by doing good or not something really bad. That is called works righteousness, and it is self righteousness, and will fall WAY short on judgment day. Christianity is being reconciled to God, not a path you choose to go down. Oprah chose to be a Christian, but did you know that you can’t choose to be a Christian, you can only be MADE a Christian by God? (Psa 3:8)

People do not understand God — I run into a lot of people who say, “well if I am sorry for my sins, God will forgive me”. So I ask them if that would work in a Earthly court. If they had done something really bad, would the judge just say, “Awww, you said you were sorry, go on home.” To that they reply, “Well, that is here on Earth, God is a lot different. He isn’t a judge.” They have a idea of a god who is only love, forgiveness, and mercy, but they miss the other attributes of God which tell us he is a jealous God, full of anger at sin, wrathful and vengeful against the ungodly. A God of justice who will in no way overlook sin. I wonder where they get these people get these watery ideas of God from? Could it be our modern day, lukewarm presentation of God? Hmmmm… i wonder…

The 10 Commandments shows us the very nature of God himself. These are not just good ideas, they are who God is. They also show us why christianity is the only way to God, and finally it reveals to us just how much we measure up to a holy God. That is precisely why we need to keep the Law of God in our pulpits, in our thoughts, and in our evangelism.

–Danny

Oprah tells everyone in this clip that Christianity is just a “choice”.

Today I am reminded of how gracious God is to me, and how much he has given me.

Today is my 11th anniversary with my beautiful wife. In the providence of God, He brought us together before I was saved and in His grace has allowed our relationship to flourish. I cannot express how much I love my wife and how grateful I am to God for bringing us together. I hope and pray that in Heaven, he may allow us to worship him together.

Marriage is a symbol of the love that Jesus Christ has for his church and should point back to our Savior. I feel privileged and humbled that I am able to be part of this heavenly shadow that is Christ’s love for his children.

I pray that I might be a better representative of Christ in my role as a husband. I pray that I might be a better leader for my family. I pray to be more of a servant; to be a true and faithful witness.

I pray that God will be glorified in our marriage. I aslo pray that my love for God grows and that my love for my wife will be a reflection of the love I have for God.

I just read a tract that talks about how simple it is to be saved. Here it is if you would like to see it.

After reading that tract, there was a little conflict that started in my mind over how we present salvation to others. While I will agree that the PRINCIPLE of salvation is simple (repentance and faith), but in practice, it is the hardest thing someone will ever do. In fact, it is impossible without God working through a person to bring them to salvation. So how we present the gospel is HUGE.

A person has to die to themselves, broken over their sin. That is so contrary to human nature and we are SOOO full of pride. The Bible even says that because of their pride, men will not seek after God. (Ps. 10:4) It takes a miracle to bring us to our knees. We have to be at a point where surrender our very being to God himself as a living sacrifice to his glory. Salvation is nothing short of a miracle!

And yet so many times I have read tracts or heard invitations that trivialize salvation down to a simple decision to follow God, or a prayer to ask him into your heart. They generalize sin and omit Hell, and in the process, water down both. Everybody does it, don’t you feel bad? Say this prayer quick!

Now I have nothing against someone crying out to God in prayer, but sites like www.Jesus2020.com (which advertises all over Godtube) are telling people to recite some words and then pronouncing them saved. That is how “easy” some want to make the gospel.

What are we missing here? Where is the personal conviction of sin? The personal responsibility before a Holy God for our crimes? Where is repentance? Judgment? Hell? Where is God’s Law- the schoolmaster that leads us to Christ? It has been thrown out of our pulpits and out of our theology.

To quote George Whitfield, “Secure sinners must hear the thundering of Mt. Siani before we bring them to Mt. Zion”. In other words, if you leave out the wrath of God, His judgment, or Hell, then you are doing your hearer a disservice.

If you read down to Matthew 7:5, Jesus says, “You hypocrite! Remove the log from your own eye then you will see more clearly to remove the speck from your brothers eye.” The rebuke is not against judging, but against judging with a puffed up, self righteous, attitude. The Pharisees and Sadducees had that kind of attitude where they looked down their noses at “those sinners” that Jesus ate with. The point is don’t put yourself up on a pedestal. And more than that, if you are living as a hypocrite, you don’t have the right to judge anything.

The problem is, that if you stand up to proclaim truth, or call sin what it is, no matter how humble you are, some are still call you self righteous. Or arrogant, I have heard that one too. In this post-modern world, people think that there is NO ONE that can know truth, so if you show any confidence in the Word of God, be prepared for people to try and shut you down by attacking your motive.

In John 7:24, Jesus says, “Judge not based on appearances, but judge righteous judgment.” I cannot judge motives or appearances, but I can judge actions. If you take my wallet and remove a single dollar, and I catch you, I have the right to call you a thief. In the same way, if you admit to me that you have told lies, then, by definition, I can say that you are a liar.

Something else I cannot judge is where someone will spend eternity, but if I know someone is not right with God, I can tell them that if they die in their sins, then God would be forced to give them justice and cast them into Hell forever. I don’t know if a person will use their last breath to repent and put their faith in Jesus Christ, but if I can determine that they are not trusting in Christ alone for their salvation, then I am not giving them my judgment, I am giving them God’s.

Here is an example: If I was witnessing to Howard Stern and there was not a radical change in his religious viewpoint, can I safely say that he is not a Christian? Then at that moment in time, I can tell Mr. Stern that God ‘s wrath abides on him, that he is an enemy of God in his mind through wicked works. I can tell him that unless he repents and puts his faith in Christ alone, he will end up in Hell. Oprah Winfrey has said that “there can possibly be just one way to God”, which puts her firmly outside the bounds of Christianity. If I were to talk with her and spiritual viewpoint is the same, I could tell her the same thing.

So the next time someone tells you shouldn’t be judging people, tell them “I’m not, I’m telling people how God is going to judge them.” And if you use the Law to bring the knowledge of sin, inevitably, someone is going to ask you, “have you done any of those things?” You can say, “I have broken every commandment in spirit if not in letter.”